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U.S. Forces Fight Deeper Into Baghdad

Tuesday, April 8, 2003
(6:43 PM ET)
By Chris Tomlinson & David Espo
Associated Press Writers

The toll on civilians from four days of urban combat was unknown. But the World Health Organization (WHO) said Baghdad's hospitals were running out of supplies to treat the burns, shrapnel wounds and spinal injuries caused by the fighting.

U.S. Army soldiers from A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment search a presidential palace in Baghdad, Tuesday, April 8, 2003. The palace was the second they had secured in as many days, both lavish buildings heavily damaged by previous Air Force bombing.
Image Credit: John Moore -- AP

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- AP
U.S. forces battled the tattered remnants of Iraq's army for control of downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, crushing a counterattack and seizing a military airport. Saddam Hussein's fate was unknown after an attempt to kill him from the air.

Inside the capital to stay, some Army units routed Iraqi fighters from a Republican Guard headquarters. Others discovered a 12-room complex inside a cave, complete with white marble floors, 10-foot ceilings and fluorescent lighting.

Marines battled snipers as they fought deeper into the capital from the east. They seized the Rasheed Airport and captured enough ammunition for an estimated 3,000 troops. Ominously, they also took a prison where they found Army uniforms and chemical weapons suits possibly belonging to U.S. POWs.

On the city's northern side, Army forces on the city's northern side set a Republican Guard barracks ablaze. Warplanes flew their bombing runs unchallenged over the city, and Abu Dhabi television reported that black smoke poured out of the Ministry of Planning building in the city's center.

"We are continuing to maintain our ability to conduct operations around and in Baghdad, and remove them from regime control" said Capt. Frank Thorp, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command.
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2003 © The Associated Press

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